Which first day is harder for parents: kindergarten or a senior year of high school?

“The days are long the years are brief.”

That’s how someone described the parental passage of time to me once, and it is probably true. Time usually doesn’t feel like it is flying by while it is happening, but when we look back it is easy to gasp and wonder, “How did my little kindergartener become a senior in high school? How did the little girl who refused to wear socks and who lived in a Dora the Explorer nightgown become such a cool, confident, and loving, grownup human being?”

It happens over a lifetime and it happens in a flash.

After I took this picture of Madelyn this morning, I spent some time reading Psalm 37 and I saw a phrase that could probably be used as some of the best life/parenting advice I have ever heard. After King David wrote about not fretting, not being jealous, and trusting and delighting in God, he also urged his readers to “befriend faithfulness” (verse 3, ESV).

That’s really good. Befriend faithfulness. We do not have to be perfect parents (or spouses or friends or leaders or ministers); we just need to be faithful. If we make faithfulness our best friend every day and every year we will eventually arrive at all of God’s goals for our lives.

Jesus agrees with this, by the way. In His parable of the talents, He made it clear that no one gets graded any higher than “good and faithful servant.” Let’s go for it. Let’s be good. Let’s be faithful. And let’s serve our loved ones with all of the strength, power, and creativity that we possess. If we do this, we will ultimately be commended for a job well done.

And, wow, isn’t Madelyn amazing? She always has been.